Legalise it all
Posted on | July 2, 2008 | 102 Comments
I’m reading an interesting book at the moment about organised crime in the modern world. From Russia to the Balkan trade of people and fake goods to South African drugs and Canada.
Yes, Canada. Apparently, and I never knew this before, Canada produces huge amounts of weed in elaborate set-ups. The book describes how, in remote areas of British Columbia, those containers you see on cargo ships are buried in the earth and inside plants are grown via a system of Aeroponics which is much more efficient way of growing that Hydroponics (using lights). The containers can be covered over with dirt and leaves and nobody knows they’re there.
Anyway, the point is that some $6bn worth of Canadian grass crosses the border to the US every year. That’s quite a lot, eh? Well, not really. That amount to just 2% of the annual consumption of marijuana in America. I’ll let you do the maths on the rest.
So you have this ‘war on drugs’ going on and it costs millions and millions every year. America has funded the army in Colombia to the tune of $4bn over the last number of years to try and stem the manufacture and flow of cocaine but all that money has done is give the army shiny new weapons and caused countless deaths. The drugs still arrive in the US, in Europe and all over the world.
So with the amount of resources spent on trying to prevent drugs proving to be an absolute waste of money why not accept the fact that keeping them illegal does nothing but make bad guys rich? Because that’s the truth of it. Criminals make billions every year selling drugs and governments get nothing. It costs them money to try through inadequate policing, patrolling borders and coasts, arresting and locking up small time street dealers who can be replaced in an instant, health costs and such.
It’s like prohibition, in a way. Banning something doesn’t make demand go away, it just drives demand underground and lines the pockets of those who continue to sell the banned product/substance.
Let’s take marijuana, for instance. Some might say it’s a less harmful drug than alcohol, but you rarely hear of stoners beating the heads off each other after a long night’s smoking, beating their wives, stabbing people in the face, smashing up bus shelters, urinating in public, littering, shouting, arguing or any of the other side-effects of booze, something we all partake in quite happily. They’re more likely to be sitting around listening to the weird sounds they’ve just discovered in their 453rd listen to Dark side of the Moon and eating biscuits it took them half an hour to buy in Spar because they couldn’t decide which ones they wanted most.
Of course you get the people saying marijuana is a ‘gateway’ drug, that smoking it will lead to taking other hard drugs. Which, of course, is a load of bollocks. I know many people who smoke but who wouldn’t dream of touching anything else. And isn’t drink also the same? Doesn’t being drunk make people think doing a pill or a line of coke seem like a good idea when they wouldn’t normally think of doing it?
Imagine shops where you could buy your lump of hash, your bag of weed etc and think about what it does. It provides governments with revenue that has been lost to them for years. When you consider brand new hospital units lying idle because the HSE can’t afford to staff them then the increased income could be a timely boost to the health service or other areas that struggle for funding.
It also takes away revenue from the dealers – and I don’t mean the nice bloke whose flat you knock up to and share a joint with while he sells you your stuff. He can always get a real job. I mean the big boys, the crime syndicates and gangs who make the majority of their money through drugs.
Of course there’d be knock-on effects, perhaps those gangs would turn to more violent armed robberies to fund their lifestyles, but isn’t it easier to stop an armed robber than a drug dealer who is so far removed from the chain that even if you get a relatively major player it’s no big deal to the those at the top of the pile?
I say this this morning because I read something about new rules about alcohol advertising and how restrictive it’s going to be in the future. This is on top of the nonsensical intoxicating liquor act that’s going to make it more difficult to grown-ups, mature adults, to buy and consume alcohol, because some namby-pamby shitbags are worried about ‘binge drinking’.
Prices will go up in supermarkets and off-licences, hours will be restricted in those places and it all suits the Vintners, the scourge of responsible drinking, who want to get people back into the pubs so they can overcharge us some more. The bottom line is that in 2008 we should be able to get a fucking drink where we want and when we want. 24 hour opening does NOT mean people are going to drink 24 hours a day, you fucking morons.
I think my point in general is that those with the powers truly believe we’re all morons and idiots and half-wits. We’re being treated as such when somebody with just a little bit of common sense could make a big difference.
Prohibition of drugs does not work. With harder drugs like cocaine and heroin, I don’t have the answer. That you might have ‘Drugs’R'Us’ on Grafton Street selling all kinds of stuff is kind of ludicrous but something’s got to give sooner or later when it comes to ‘softer’ drugs like smoke. If we’re going to reap the revenue from cigarettes and alcohol, fully aware of all the problems and risks involved with them, why not marijuana?
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102 Responses to “Legalise it all”
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July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:14 am
You can buy that Canadian weed online. And quite nice too.
Anyway twenty the powers that be in this country will never dream of allowing anything but steady-status-quo. be nice though, sitting in a coffee shop on Grafton St have a smoke.
Why don’t you start your own political party ?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:20 am
You’re way off on this one, Twenty.
Haven’t you heard the true story about the mother who smoked a joint and thought her baby was a chicken and put the baby in the oven and had roast baby for dinner?
And you want to legalise this stuff?
Won’t somebody please think of the roast babies?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:20 am
Shops selling marijuana beside the alcopops?
Bring back Ben Dunne as a special advisor and a certain supermarket could corner the market on that one.
Paul
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:24 am
Why don’t you start your own political party ?
Politicians are cunts. I know I’m a cunt but I’m not that kind of cunt. Plus I’m shy.
Gimme – heh. That’s what happens when you keep
babieschickens in your back yard.Dunnes own brand hash. Nice.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:24 am
I was reading in the Metro or Herald AM this morning that they’re banning smoking cigarettes in Amsterdam coffee shops. Pure cannabis joints are still OK, but if you try to weaken them by adding tobacco you’ll have to leave the premises. Absurd!
Unfortunately, we’ll never get a politician with the balls to stand up and talk sense regarding drugs.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:25 am
Why would they legalise something when they spend endless amounts of money in the ‘war on drugs’? DOn’t be silly now, everyone knows ALL drugs are bad mmkay? Especially weed and alcohol. I’ve heard they’re ‘gateway’ drugs, smoke one joint and next thing you know you’ll be shootin’ up. Oh yes.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:25 am
It’ll never happen. If weed was legalised it would be too cheap and easy to produce at home. Why bother buying it in a licenced shop when you can grow your own. Therefore no revenue for the government no point
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:28 am
You can make your own wine/beer at home but people rarely do.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:40 am
I suspect most home grown efforts turn out crap. Like the wine and beer.
I really don’t see how anyone can argue with the points you’ve made – there’re so many eco by products from the whole hemp industry too.
I hear in Melbourne you’re allowed up to five plants for personal use. It needs to be spread much more widely for pain relief as well.
The only thing I’m not sure about is the gate way issue. I had that conversation with a friend once, about how preposterous the idea was, how it didn’t need to lead to harder drugs at all – then after a pause he added – ‘of course, it totally did in my case’.
I totally agree about taking it out of the hands of the worldwide scum, both here and away – though depressingly, Im not really sure the corporate scum aren’t worse.
Did anyone see the programme last night about cigarette marketing in Malawai, how children are targeted? I think the companies did exactly the same thing here, though, probably accounting for the amount of smokers intheir thirties and forties now – single cigarettes, watches with packs of Malborough… get ‘em young.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:46 am
The legalization of marijuana would also nicely reflect the change of social habits of our modern age.
We drink booze in pubs because it lowers inhibitions, loosens the tongue there are other people at had to whom we can talk utter bollocks. It’s essentially a social drug.
As you mentioned, the best time to smoke a smelly is on a Sunday afternoon, in an armchair, in front of your speakers listening to old music that would cause you intense embarrassment under normal circumstances. It is more than anything, an introspective drug. Better suited to the type of geek who doesn’t feel comfortable around large groups of people, who finds it excruciating to talk to the opposite sex and basically lives in his/her bedroom.
Yes indeed, weed is the drug for the internet generation.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:51 am
“The only thing I’m not sure about is the gate way issue”.
Jo, it truly is bollocks.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:02 am
the only way it’s a gateway drug is that it’s illegal, someone selling illegal stuff might have a bit of a selection of illegal drugs.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:02 am
by the way, you’re all a pack of goddamn hippies.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:09 am
hi twenty, i always read your blog but never comment ’cause the witty of the people who comment here scares foreigners like me. the drug issue tho is something that always gets me, as coming from brasil i see what damage the drug lords and drug wars do to society. i’m all for legalising all types of drugs. soft drug, hard drug, people who want to use and consume them will do one way or another, so why not tax them?
btw i’m currently reading your book and it’s absolutely hilarious! looking forward to the next one!
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:09 am
I suspect most home grown efforts turn out crap. Like the wine and beer.
Not necessarily – it’s a weed it thrives where there’s light – not like home brewing where there’s a bit of chemistry involved. It’s this chemistry that scuppers most batchs of home brew and turn people off it.
The gateway issue is’nt a real issue – all these drugs are already available to the people who smoke weed.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:12 am
Sorry, but the criminals wouldn’t just pack up and creep quietly away.
Firstly, the Government would regard the new legalised drug business as a massive source of income, charging VAT and adding Excise Duty as each Budget, so that the crooks would still make money from smuggling & theft as they do now from cigs & drink.
Secondly, they’re relatively happy at the moment not to push hard drugs as they are making money from the softer ones. Cut into their revenue from these and they will redouble their efforts to hook people on herion & stuff.
A drug is only a gateway drug if the person selling it to you offers you something “better”. At the moment they’re not bothering, but legalise soft drugs and they will.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:14 am
You lose all street cred when you can’t spell “heroin”.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:15 am
It’s about time somebody started a serious campaign to tackle the drugs issue, honestly, what the fuck are the government so scared of?
Ordinary people aren’t going to go drug-crazy just because they have been legalised. Sure, there will be people who succumb to the negative aspects of drug use but, for the most part, these people are/would be alcoholics so it’s much of the same isn’t it?
I’d rather see my old granny sitting out in her garden smoking a spliff than falling off a stool in the pub after drinking 10 vodkas, wouldn’t you?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:17 am
It’s true, nobody wants to see a vodka-d up granny falling off her stool. Except people who watch ‘You’ve been Framed’
Hi Tatoca :)
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:19 am
Milk is a gateway for alcohol, nearly everyone who drinks it goes on to drink booze. Let’s have a war on milk.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:21 am
“You can buy that Canadian weed online. And quite nice too.”
Link……. now please.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:23 am
No Conan.
lets go straight to the source. Water.
Can you think of a single drug user who doesn’t drink water.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:24 am
I suppose hash is just the thing you start with if you’re going to do other drugs anyway – it doesn’t mean it’s the reason why you do.
However, just because you-all are cheery hash smokers who don’t do (coke or pills… hmmm…) doesn’t mean that it’s the same for all other people.
Still, I think legalising it would make it less of a gateway to illegal drugs rather than more – I don’t think smoking cigarettes leads you to smoking hash, so why would smoking legal hash lead to further drug use.
Tinman makes a good point though. You’d all be buying your gear on Moore st to avoid recession hash prices.
Plus, if it goes legal, the cigarette companies will leap on it. I find that distasteful somehow.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:25 am
btw i’m currently reading your book and it’s absolutely hilarious! looking forward to the next one!
I’m glad to see you’re getting the good drugs in Brazil.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:28 am
It’s true, nobody wants to see a vodka-d up granny falling off her stool. Except people who watch ‘You’ve been Framed’
I defy anyone not to find people falling over funny. It’s just not possible.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:28 am
Not necessarily – it’s a weed it thrives where there’s light – not like home brewing where there’s a bit of chemistry involved. It’s this chemistry that scuppers most batchs of home brew and turn people off it.
I dunno Dessie, have you ever seen an interview with one of those whitetrash American rednecks that set up meth labs in their basements. I reckon that half of them are too thick to tie their shoes but where there’s a will there’s a way.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:31 am
Alcohol is more of a gateway drug than hash by far. People are much more likely to try other substances on booze than they are on hash. They are also far more likely to climb construction site cranes, sing at the top of their voices on a quite residential street and tell people to fuck off when asked to be quiet. They are also more likely to be violent, self destructive, ill, broke and non functioning.
Hash can make people anti-social and people do become dependent on it but it is easier to give up than drink and cigarettes. And you won’t see a stoner fighting off three cops and yelling at the top his voice.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:32 am
Alchohol is by far the higher evil than most of the common drugs available(I am leaving crystal meth and pcp out of this argument). Alchohol related illness costs our health services millions and the number of deaths through alchohol related illness is quadruple that of illegal drugs. You would in fact reduce the amount of deaths related to drugs if you legalised it, overdoses could be treated in a more timely fashion (see Canada’s heroin program stats for evidence) and people would be less likely to use skanky needles. Legalise heroin, cocaine, cannabis, speed and E. tax it and plough the money into the economy. Take the source of income away from the criminals, and watch them squirm. This would also free up police resources to catch real criminals. In Bolivia you can possess up to gram of coke, In Canada addicts can go to state sponsored shooting galleries and in the Netherlands you can smoke weed. Many countries allow you to legally take hallucinangic mushrooms/plants. This is about controlling the masses and ensuring you have an available workforce to generate welath for the ruling classes.
Up the revolution.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:33 am
oh i live in ireland, been living here for 7 years and it looks like i’ll be here for a lot longer too…
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:33 am
Re: the gateway drug issue.
This whole myth was perpetrated by the fact that about one thousand heroin addicts in the UK were interviewed back in the sixties and it was found that most of them had, at one point or another, smoked a spliff. It didn’t matter that many of them had been shooting up heroin before they had touched their first spliff.
A good read about the legal issues surrounding dope is ‘The Strange Case of Pot’ by Micheal Scholfield, published in 1971 not long after the last legal dope trials were acrries out in teh UK.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:42 am
“oh i live in ireland, been living here for 7 years and it looks like i’ll be here for a lot longer too…”
Did you banged up?
(Jail if you’re a man/pregnant if you’re a woman)
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:45 am
But does the evidence about how awful alcohol is actually present any good argument for legalising hash? I agree that it’s a pleasant and moderately innocuous drug, and am in favour of it’s legalisation, but I still think it has its negatives. Or rather, the over use of it does.
The gateway/heroin use stats bring up an interesting point – of course there will be people who use it fairly healthily and there will be people who abuse it – we can see that already. And people who use it, em, sensibly? are penalised because of those who are scummy about it. Can there be a happy rule for all?
I once suggested there should be seperate legislation for stupid people and got a horrified reaction from someone – ‘but that’s fascist!’. I suppose this is the same.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:47 am
Not necessarily – it’s a weed it thrives where there’s light – not like home brewing where there’s a bit of chemistry involved. It’s this chemistry that scuppers most batchs of home brew and turn people off it.
When I lived in warmer climes I grew my own and it was very, very good.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:51 am
holemaster, i’m neither pregnant nor in jail, but i’m getting married this year to a dublin man!
the overuse of anything is damaging to the user’s health and those in their lives. but making something illegal will not stop anyone (over)using it.
i also agree that legalising drugs will probably cause an increase to other types of crimes, but i’d say that crime exists since humans do and keeping drugs illegal is not the answer for that particular problem.
i don’t think governments anywhere tho are willing to lose all the cash they make from any type of war, so we won’t be seeing hash on the shelves of our corner shop for a long time…
July 2nd, 2008 @ 10:54 am
Although I’ve mentioned this issue numerous times on my own blog, I think it’s time I wrote another post about it. If you feel strongly about it and you have a blog then I urge you to do the same.
With enough people behind the idea, the traditional media would have to take notice and our recognised journalists (ie. the guys getting paid for writing this type of shit) may even add a bit of momentum to it…
You’ll be forgiven for thinking that I’m some sort of drug-loving hippie but that’s not the case, I just feel that our drug laws and policies are outdated, unworkable and, most importantly, an infringement of our rights to do whatever the fuck we please with our own bodies & minds.
Good man, Twenty. You got the ball rolling…
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:04 am
Great topic Twenty – weed is a gateway drug not because of any addictive propeties but because the geezers who sell it can sell you other, harder stuff too.
On it’s own it’s main draw backs are that it is, long term more carcinogenic than tobacco, affects long term memory and concentration and also puts a big dent in your sperm count!
Apart from that I say legalise it and tax the shit out of it – may get us out of this recession. And if it doesn’t at least we won’t be feeling any pain.
The irony is that a bunch of similar “herbs” can be bought in your local Head shop any day without restrictions.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:05 am
GODALMIGHTY – THATS ALL THE COUNTRY NEEDS – YOU LOT ON DOPE….THEN AGAIN – WOULD ANYONE NOTICE ANY DIFFERENCE?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:15 am
Eh, I think that’s the point, G. They are on dope already. And what harm? What are you on, shouty pills?
I SAID, WHAT ARE YOU ON, SHOUTY PILLS?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:17 am
Lung – yes I have seen interviews with the Meth Lab technicians – Scary stuff.
My point was weed related in that all you gotta do to grow good weed is provide plenty of light/Warmth and water. No Chemistry involved, unkike home brewing or meth production which requires some chemical processes.
If you want to grow good weed under lights at home it can be done relatively cheaply – electricity being the most expensive element and by cloning your plants you can be sure of your quality and never run out. The danger of doing this at the moment is the possibility that the authorities will look on such production as being for distribution purposes rather then personal use.
My original point being that if people can produce it at home then it cant be taxed and if it cant be taxed than we sure as hell cant have it
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:20 am
Chuntzu, please tell me that my local Head shop is somewhere where I can get head…
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:23 am
It’s easy enough, Dessie, but time consuming. I know you can get the quick grow stuff but you’re talking at least 3 months for indoor growing, 6 months outdoor.
Most people would just go to the shop and buy a bag and save them the hassle.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:23 am
What are you on, shouty pills?
I SAID, WHAT ARE YOU ON, SHOUTY PILLS?
He’s probably shouting at the monitor right now.
ISN’T THAT RIGHT GLUAISTEAN?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:27 am
You forgot to mention that stoners would certainly cause fewer traffic accidents as they would all be driving at 15 mph.
“You’ll be forgiven for thinking that I’m some sort of drug-loving hippie but that’s not the case”
And this coming from someone who calls himself ‘H’?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:31 am
“GODALMIGHTY – THATS ALL THE COUNTRY NEEDS ”
There it is again… Crack! Bang! Rumble! Flash!
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:32 am
I TOOK TWO BLUE PILLS AND TWO RED PILLS.
I CAN’T STOP SHOUTING AND I’VE GOT AN ENORMOUS ERECTION.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:34 am
Take a yellow, quick morgor, that’ll stop it getting any bigger.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:36 am
Hurry up, Jo, morgor wants to show you his cannon again.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:36 am
WHAT’S THAT YOU SAY HOLEMASTER.
I’M LOUD AND PROUD AND DON’T HAVE TIME FOR CHIT-CHAT.
I’M GETTING A PLANE TO AMSTERDAM.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:40 am
Think of the increased revenue for 24hr filling stations, sale of Kit Kats would go through the roof and bottled water and ice-poles for pill heads. Its an economic boom just waiting to happen. Perhaps Glueface would come back to the “auld country” to participate in the boom instead of languishing in the mid-west and shouting at everyone.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:42 am
Ha, Tinman, he already has!
I’m looking forward to cannon locations from around the world.
WHAT’S THIS PURPLE ONE DO?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:48 am
Not the purple Jo….. Jo?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 11:58 am
Local radio talking about drugs is hilarious, they don’t have a clue.
I had a dream once where I was on the radio telling them that some cocaine was accidently used to make bread… I bet they’d believe that too.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
drugs are for losers
just say no
July 2nd, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
also, i will help you knock it on the head by personally collecting your stash for safe disposal
July 2nd, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
Fuck off Zammo
July 2nd, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
Instead of licensing the drugs we could license people to take drugs. Like driving – different categories of license for different categories of drugs.
A HGV/Bus license for smack. A commercial van & trailer license for using combinations of pills. A small motorbike license for homegrown maryjane.
No provisional license scheme since it patently hasn’t worked for driving. The testing process should be rigorous, scientific, and put out to tender.
You’d have to carry your license on you at all times, particularly when you want to purchase your goods. There’d need to be a ceiling on the amount that could be sold at anyone time, and within a certain time frame – an atm card to be used in drug stores would sort that out.
My preferred retail outlets would be video stores – Xtravision sounds right – and publicans and pharmacies should be prohibited from getting in on the act.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 12:35 pm
I used to do drugs. I still do.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 12:37 pm
I have this image of Gluestain as the statue of justice on top of the old bailey who stands there motionless and expressionless and then randomly bellows fire, brimstone, blood & thunder about….whatever irks him, the daft spa.
Tinman makes a good point, but I still think legalising it would solve more problems than it would create, on balance.
Not that it’ll happen. The morass of ignorance, misinformation & misguided moralising about drugs at an official level in Ireland would not only beggar, but bugger belief.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
And I don’t even do any drugs at all anymore.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
Good idea, Conan.
I also like Julian Gough’s idea about licencing people to eat meat – you have to do a butchery course and butcher a cow.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
heh, buggers belief.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
oh I can just see the horror now……restaurants open all night to cope with munchies……nothing on the menu but twix and crisps and picnic bars and oh tayto crisps and ……….
never mind the kids, will no one think of the waiters……?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
conan, what about speed limits then?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:06 pm
Ever see an old man eating a twix?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:07 pm
On a more serious note…. A minor.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
an even deeper note… a miner
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
‘conan, what about speed limits then?’
Good question, maybe an ‘advanced driving’ test for folks wanting to get their speed freak on?
The speed limit analogy should apply to strength of dosage and would be controlled at point of purchase. Of course you’d get Michael O’Leary types getting a license, although not a user, and selling on their credits. I can see a lot of trading in drug credits, a bit like milk quotas.
The government would probably bring in a ‘virtual road tax’ as a disencentive to heavy users.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
A minor is not a note. It is a chord, made up of at least 3 notes. The 3rd and the 6th are flattened.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
A minor is the relative minor of C major.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
provisional drug licence would be a good idea though. wouldn’t want someone causing a pile up on their first time out with their shiny new powerful drugs, would we?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:20 pm
Well excuuuuuuuse me
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
Of course, I should have said A flat.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
Conan, I like your idea.
Will there be automatic face recognition cameras and drug speed cops who have to get as stoned as you to catch up with you and pull you over, in the metaphorical sense.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
doesn’t really work, either.
no one note sounds more serious than another, except in conjuction with a series of other notes.
maybe it should go a little like this…
on a more serious note – A flat, when used as the minor 3rd of F, and following a major chord in the same key?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
zippy
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
2 tumbleweed points and a bonus wanker point to me
sweet
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
flattened 3rd and 6th (and the rest)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qiJPZ0Rruc
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
back to topic, though.
the black market has a clearly more stable economy. in real terms, the price of greenery has fallen gently but steadily over the years.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
hellooooo? helloooooooo?
let me guess, new thread and everyone has buggered off like kids after an ice cream van?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
It may be better left to blackmarket, the price of pills has dropped by a huge amount over the last twenty years, the government gets in on the act it will be more expensive to get high than steal diesel from a farmer.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
How much is an ounce of hash these days?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
Apparently drugs are fairly legal in Dublin now. On Oireachtas Family Day I passed through that walkway by Setanta Street over to Kildare and there were eight people, requisite scruffy blanket over the shoulders, openly cooking and shooting heroin at 2 in the afternoon.
Always on the job, as I passed they didn’t forget to ask me for money “to eat.”
July 2nd, 2008 @ 2:01 pm
about 100 eur for standard brown
July 2nd, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
“Will there be automatic face recognition cameras and drug speed cops who have to get as stoned as you to catch up with you and pull you over, in the metaphorical sense.”
I think you’re tripping into Blade Runner territory there, Holemaster.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
“hellooooo? helloooooooo?
let me guess, new thread and everyone has buggered off like kids after an ice cream van?”
More like priests after the kids after the ice cream van, but close
July 2nd, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
There was a poll discussed in the “Toronto Star” saying that 40% of adults in Canada have admitted to smoking the chronic.
Anytime you’re in a park in the summer, someone’s blazing.
The only reason that it’s not legal here is because the U.S. would shit bricks.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
“Mom, Dad, I wanna go to college in Canada”
July 2nd, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
you wondered if there “will there be automatic face recognition cameras”?
wrong tense – there ARE face recognition cameras – to be found now at an airport near you.
Alas, they only work well when the technician is totally stoned. I know for a fact that Colin Powell was stopped about 18 months ago an airport “Stateside” as our Yankee bros might say. He has the misfortune to be Obama coloured – you know, unfashionable desert tan, and his mug tallied with some cyber recognition data and there he was, trying to explain to Homeland Security that he once was somebody really important and that not only was he not a threat to the land of the free but he had, in fact, saved it from Islamic hordes.
Didn’t work and he spent two hours cooling his heels. I guess the human face recognition software wasn’t working too well either.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
My review of ‘Music and Madness’ the momoir by Ivor Browne, to be found in the current issue of Magill, in which I make the same argument about the weed as your good self – and also draw attention to a truly noxious government paper of May 2006:
[SNIP]
Finally, it is gratifying to come across a senior medic who openly acknowledges his enthusiasm for that useful substance, cannabis, and the ‘…lovely relaxed feeling of smoking grass while listening to jazz.’ The public expression of such views has landed him in hot water in the past, as has his espousal of the therapeutic value of LSD. Once again, all this while members of the psychiatric establishment are still busy taking taxpayers’ money into their already amply filed pockets to help produce government reports which continue to rehash the traditional 1950s American McCarthyite ‘reefer madness’ paranoia and peddle the clichéd 1960s anti-countercultural dogmas about cannabis being a gateway drug, and a contributory cause of mental illness, and so should therefore remain illegal and carry stiff penalties for possession, even for personal use. (See the tenth report of the Joint Committee on Arts, Sport and Tourism, ‘What Everyone should know about Cannabis’, July 2006. In her foreword to the report on ‘this truly noxious weed’, Committee Chairman Cecilia Keaveney, a Fianna Fail Senator and former T.D., accepts that ‘…mental illness is managed rather than cured’. Consultants for the report included Dr. Siobhán Barry and Professor Mary Cannon.) This is akin to arguing that because some people get very sick when they eat a lot of chocolate, chocolate should therefore be banned; or, more pertinently, that just because a certain percentage of the population have a predisposition towards alcoholism, that prohibition should be introduced – a ‘noble experiment’ that fostered more social problems than it sought to solve when it was tried in 1920s America.
In the Arts Lives documentary about him, poet Paul Durcan recalled how, during one of his hospitalisations, a psychiatrist told him, “Paul, you are one of the most evil people I have ever met.” Not surprisingly, perhaps, Durcan opined that the pseudo-profession contains some of the most casually hypocritical and viciously cynical people he has ever encountered. While he may not be a saint, it is difficult to imagine a public figure less inclined towards evil than Paul Durcan. At the same time, it is hard to think of any other special interest group who have done, and continue to do – with almost complete unaccountability and lack of transparency – more hurt and harm to the lives of ordinary, vulnerable people than psychiatrists. On the evidence of this book, even if it is from the horse’s mouth, Ivor Browne is an exception, in being one of the very few good guys to have made his life’s work in this den of iniquity, where our supposed arbiters of sanity are often crazier than their patients, or else of ruthlessly sound mind in their exploitation of them.
First published in Magill, June/July 2008
July 2nd, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
Fucking hell. You couldn’t have just linked it, no?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
It’s a bit long all right…have edited it so it only has the relevant bit.
Anyone who wants to the read the rest can buy Magill.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
“Buy Magill”.
Oh Twenty you’re so funny.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 4:20 pm
Is that the same guy who carried/filled Charlie Haughey’s wallet with vulgar money and ran an offshore “banking” business at Cement Roadstone?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
“the Joint Committee on Arts, Sport and Tourism, ‘What Everyone should know about Cannabis’,”
never was a joint committee more aptly named.
July 2nd, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
heh
July 2nd, 2008 @ 8:33 pm
360 for an ounce of green in this part of the country though.can’t imagine having the bobs to pay for it if they taxed them like fags.
anyone know how many plants you can grow before you become a dealer as opposed to a user?
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:18 pm
Have none of you maniacs seen “Reefer Madness”?
It also makes you impotent-the bloke across the road from me burns weed like an incinerator and I can’t get a pan handle any more….
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:47 pm
The only reason why hemp is made illegal was because it would flourish the cotton industry. And benefit some papermills. Hemp is the fastest growing plant and it’s usefulness is endless. Oil, paper, clothes, ropes, petrol, you name it, hemp can do it. It grows practically anywhere. So in fact it can be dirt cheap to produce. But making it dirt cheap means you can’t make that much profit. Besides, clothes made out of hemp are practically indestructible. The first Levi’s where made of hemp. Think the average cotton Levi’s doesn’t even last longer than a year.
Read this: http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/hemp/hemp_media6.shtml for why hemp and thus marijuana was banned.
July 3rd, 2008 @ 10:54 am
Sorry for length, at least for those readers with attention deficit disorder. Would have linked it, except it isn’t up on my website yet. Will do so in future (if there is a future). The version published in Magill is also pruned, with not as much detail as what was posted here.
The ‘Joint’ Committee Report is available online, http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=6005&CatID=78&StartDate=01 January 2006&OrderAscending=0, if anyone is bothered with the drivel.
And no, Conan, I’m not Charlie Haughey’s deceased accountant, nor any relation to him. I’m not even, indeed, a Fianna Fail supporter. That’s an old and tired joke at this stage, although it was the bane of my social life for about five years.
July 3rd, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
Can’t we just ban alcohol too?
July 3rd, 2008 @ 10:33 pm
Shame on you
July 12th, 2008 @ 3:36 am
I can’t praise this article enough Twenty, it’s a great thing that your blog is reaching people.
My very late take on the issues raised:
Gateway drug? Bullshit. If you legalise grass, you will also take away the “relationship” between common smokers and scumbags trying to push harder drugs onto people.
Revenue. State run coffee shops will generate huge sums which can be invested straight back into our economy whilst creating x amount of jobs at the same time.
Mental illness? There is absolutely ZERO evidence that cannabis creates any mental illnesses. They might enhance those already present in certain individuals, but surely it is up to the person themself (or their friends/family)to seek out further help/quit smoking. Average everyday people are not naive children that can’t manage their own lives.
Crime. It will cut crime..simple as. The pushers wont have any direct contact with casual smokers anymore due to them buying their smoke legally. Part of the income derived from the legal sale of grass can be put into fighting real crime.
Sadly, ..politicians are either absolute squares who dont understand the pleasure of lighting up a spliff or older arseholes who believe cannabis is lucifer reincarnated in plantform.
Great piece 20. Lets hope some people with influence are reading it and have a eureka moment.
LEGALISE!